24 September 2012

I'm obsessed with apples this month. When I went to the store last week, I bought three bags! I have been putting them to good use, too. This is the coffee cake I made for church yesterday. This recipe comes from Emeril Legasse. I've never been a fan of Emeril, but this recipe came up in a search result and looked too good to pass up.

Apple Brown Sugar Coffee CakeIngredients:Cake:½ cup (1 stick) butter, softened1½ cups brown sugar2 eggs1 cup sour cream (light is fine)1 tsp vanilla extract2 cups flour1 tsp baking soda1 tsp cinnamon½ tsp salt2 cups peeled, cored, and chopped apples (I used 3 small Gala)Crumble Topping:½ cup brown sugar½ cup flour½ tsp cinnamon4 tbsp butter, softenedBrown Sugar Glaze:½ cup brown sugar½ tsp vanilla extract2 tbsp waterDirections:Preheat oven to 350°. Coat a 9x13” glass baking dish with baking spray.In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, sour cream, and vanilla. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt. Add dry ingredients to the wet ingredients. Fold in the apples. Pour into the prepared baking dish, spreading out to the edges.To make the topping, in a bowl, combine the sugar, flour, cinnamon, and butter, and mix until it resembles coarse crumbs. Sprinkle the topping over the cake and bake until golden brown and set, 35 to 40 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool on a wire rack for at least 10 minutes.To make the glaze, in a bowl, combine the sugar, vanilla, and water and mix until smooth. Drizzle the cake with the glaze and let harden slightly. Serve warm.Makes 24 servings.

If you (for some odd reason) need to use up a bunch of brown sugar, this is the recipe for you! Yep, it takes a whole 2 cups of brown sugar. Definitely not diet food, but coffee cakes rarely are. My crumble topping didn't turn out quite right, but it's because I melted over-softened the butter. Not as pretty looking, but still good. And the brown sugar glaze didn't come out like Emeril's picture. My glaze just soaked in to the coffee cake so you couldn't really even see it. Emeril's had definite drizzlings. Don't know what I did wrong there. On my cake, the glaze just ended up making kind of a crunchy top to the cake, which wasn't bad. But next time I might just leave it off.

Topping aside, this is a very good coffee cake. Moist and delicious. The apples were the perfect consistency: not too hard and not too soft.

I served this at church alongside Cinnamon Blondies (recipe to follow sometime soon), and I managed to come home empty-handed. Between those two recipes, I used up every last bit of brown sugar and all-purpose flour I had in the house that day! In fact, I needed flour to make a gravy for dinner that night (to go with my Cider-Mustard Pork Sirloin Roast, also coming soon), and I had to use bread flour.

You won't be hearing much from me the rest of the week as I will be taking a little blogging break, but I will be back next Monday to share with you a recipe as part of a memorial tribute to a fellow blogger. Have a great week.

Lesa, I'm with you on the apples! It's like fall officially starts and everything is all about apples. This coffee cake sounds delicious, I'm not a fan of Emerill either (too much bam!) If the topping is good, I'd forget about the glaze. Will be trying soon.